At the time of globalization of the economy, the company must open outwards, while keeping control of its environment. Its success will depend largely on its ability to manage the collection, processing and dissemination of the information for strategic purposes; hence the importance is growing of the concept of standby.

Indeed, now, only companies that will cross a qualitative threshold and will be important in their capacity to envisage the markets; will determine the potential needs; will identify the technological innovations; will anticipate changes in the behavior of economic, political and social, will be eligible to maintain their competitiveness.

It has been decided to do a strategic monitoring of the pharmaceutical industry. This document will illustrate the dynamism of this sector by studying a specific example: the mergers and acquisitions occurred in 2006. In 2004, the world drug market is valued at 550 billion dollars (as against less than 200 billion dollars in 1990). If the market now enjoys rapid expansion, it is also changing the market that tends to move toward a strategy of concentration and internationalization.

Many issues have threatened the pharmaceutical giants such as the development of generics, the loss of patents, the innovation race and legal threats. This paper will study the market to understand the importance of various issues raised. It will explore alternative strategies of development and finally, it will illustrate one of these strategies with the proposed merger between Merck and Schering acquisition.

In 1991, Europe realized more than a third of the turnover of the pharmaceutical industry. Today, Europe is far behind North America (USA and Canada) that carries nearly half of the sales. However, Europe remains the largest producer of drugs. France is also the European leader in this market. Since 1995, France is the largest producer of medicines in the European Union. These results, however, remain weak, and conditions must be created to maintain the attractiveness of France in terms of industrial investments. The main competitor is Ireland.

In 2003 there were 220 production sites in France and 300 industrial pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most dynamic sectors of the French industry, with a global market and with strong growth prospects. It is also one of the most internationalized, dominated by global corporations. Production platform for Europe, France is the fifth largest exporter of drugs. If foreign companies account for half of exports and production in the territory, only the French pharmaceutical group contribute to the trade surplus.

Business investment in drug research and development in France is 12.1% of the total turnover of the companies involved, almost 3.7 billion euros in 2002. It is comparable to those of the major countries of the European Union drug discoverers.

The drug industry spends on research and development budget greater in value than the space sector. Almost 100% of the investment in France is to research funded by the drug companies, the share of public funding is less than 0.4%. Research also employs an increasing share of employees in the drug companies . In France, the number has tripled in 20 years. In 2002, around 20,807 people worked in R & D.